1. SpotCrime is a crime data aggregator. They map the crime incidents, plot them on Google Maps in an interactive way, and deliver alerts via email, Facebook, Twitter, SMS, RSS and a multitude of other platforms. The data comes from police departments, news reports and user-generated content. This group aims to provide the most accurate, timely geocoded crime information to the public as well as help people who want to be crime reporters for their cities. Spot Crime is connected with Facebook and has 652 of fans.
2. MyLocalCrime is powered by SpotCrime.com. This version is a more user-friendly as well as another outlet to find and view crime information. If you want a quick view of crime data around a particular address- MyLocalCrime is for you. If you want a more detailed search of crime data, try SpotCrime. This group is dedicated to bringing relevant, local, timely and accurate crime information to the public at no cost to residents or the departments. In a belief that information is power; the more information residents have about their surroundings, the safer the communities will become, MyLocalCrime is dedicated for the right of every citizen to have easy access to crime information in his or her neighborhood. So far, 364 people on Facebook like this.
3. Everyblock collects all of the news and civic goings-on that have happened recently in your city, and filters an assortment of local news by location so you can keep track of what’s happening on your block, in your neighborhood and all over your city. Just enter any address, neighborhood or ZIP code in those cities, and the site shows you recent public records, news articles and other Web content that’s geographically relevant to you. The organization aims to make it simple for public to keep track of news in particular areas. A geographic filter is who they are. As of March 2010, they cover 16 American cities--Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Washington. On each site, you can type in any address to read local news and public information. Three main types of news:
Civic information — building permits, crimes, restaurant inspections and more. This information, otherwise buried in hard-to-find government databases, has been forged and posted in relationships with governments to make it available.
News articles and blog entries — major newspapers, community weeklies, TV and radio news stations, local specialty publications and local blogs. Articles classified by geography, so you can easily find the mainstream media coverage near particular locations.
Fun from across the Web — local photos posted to the Flickr photo-sharing site, user reviews of local businesses on Yelp, lost and found postings from Craigslist and more. We figure out the relevant places and point you to location-specific items you might not have known about.
EveryBlock was originally funded by a two-year grant from the Knight Foundation through its Knight News Challenge program. It is now wholly owned by msnbc.com. People who started and lead Everyblock are: Adrian Holovaty who is the leader of EveryBlock team, and a journalist and Web developer. Previously, he worked as editor of editorial innovations at washingtonpost.com and developed one of the original Google Maps mashups, chicagocrime.org.
Paul Smith who is a developer at EveryBlock. Prior to EveryBlock, he was a freelance developer for sites such as Crain’s Chicago Business. Previously, he worked at the Center for Neighborhood Technology, a Chicago non-profit, where he was the technology director of a community wireless networking pilot, and developed many Web sites such as the Civic Footprint.
Daniel X. O’Neil who is the People Person at EveryBlock, responsible for working with local governments to uncover new data sets.
Joseph Kocherhans who is a developer at EveryBlock. Before coming to EveryBlock, he worked on the Web team at the Lawrence Journal-World.
4. CrimeReports(TipSoft) is the first and largest in online crime mapping, partnering with over 900 law enforcement agencies across North America. TipSoft has evolved fully integrated online WebTips, where submitted data and images are delivered via encrypted email and E-Transfer, and SMS text-a-Tip capabilities into the CrimeReports network. These affordable, and easy-to-use tools enable community members to understand crime trends and share current neighborhood crime data with the public and empower them to make informed decisions to help improve the safety of their neighborhood and community. These integrated crime map and email crime alerts are accessed for free at CrimeReports is founded and led by: Greg Whisenant Founder & CEO. Previously, Greg started and was General Manager of Wasatch Solutions, a networking services and software development firm based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Before starting Wasatch Solutions in 2001, Greg worked as a senior legislative advisor for law firm Hale and Dorr in Washington, DC. Greg also worked for several years as a legislative aide to U.S. Senator Robert F. Bennett (R-UT), where he handled law enforcement, technology and telecommunications issues. For several years, Greg has been selected as a member of the vSpring v100, a list of the top 100 technology entrepreneurs in the State of Utah. Ken Meyers President & COO. Ken Meyers manages Operations for Public Engines. Prior to joining the company, he was the key operational executive in leading AdvancedMD Software.
Scott Petty - vSpring Capital Scott is a founding Managing Director of vSpring Capital, an early stage venture capital fund. Scott has led vSpring's investments in Alianza, Alpha Bay, Cerberian (acquired by Blue Coat Systems, NASDAQ:BCSI), comScore Networks (NASDAQ:SCOR), Control4, CrimeReports, FamilyLink, Infusionsoft, LignUp, SwarmBuilder, and Zonder.
Mike Dodd - Austin Ventures Mike Dodd, venture partner, joined Austin Ventures in 2008 and focuses on early and expansion-stage software and web-enabled business and consumer services.
5. i-Neighbors is a social networking service that connects residents of geographic neighborhoods. The goal of this site is to help individuals and their communities organize, share information, and work together to address local problems.
i-Neighbors was first launched in 2004. The site now serves thousands of neighborhoods across the United States and Canada.
i-Neighbors is part of an ongoing research project directed by Prof. Keith Hampton at the Annenberg School for Communication, The University of Pennsylvania. This work has benefited from the support of the National Science Foundation, L-Soft, Microsoft Research, and a Google Grant. The views expressed here and by users of this service are not endorsed by these sponsors.
Users can subscribe to i-Neighbors "discussions" and other "activity" using RSS. The Activity Wall is a summary of all the activity of other users. For example, the wall records discussion comments, profile updates, the addition of new content, and when new users join a neighborhood. From the discussion menu you can start a new discussion or comment on an existing topic. A RSS feed is a web page that is checked by a software tool called a news aggregator that can notify you when new content is available.
6. MS Vine is currently a beta service and needs feedback and ideas. The basic concept of MS Vine is to connect you to the people and places you care about most, when it matters; stay in touch with family and friends, be informed when someone needs help; and get involved to create great communities. You can send alerts from a mobile phone using text message (standard text messaging charges apply), as well as from e-mail, or from the application.The basic service is available to individuals at no cost. Organizations and individuals will be able to purchase additional services in the future.
Using your personal dashboard, Information associated with the places you have chosen will appear on your map, including articles from 20,000 news and public safety sources. Information from people you care about, such as alerts and reports, will appear on the dashboard too. By sending and receiving alerts, you can organize people into groups - the sports team you coach, people who live nearby, family far away, special friends, and emergency contacts. Each person defines how they want to receive alerts – through e-mail, a text message, or on their computer. Using Reports, you decides what you want to share with whom, and then the information is sent directly to their personal dashboard.
7. SeeClickFix allows anyone to report and track non-emergency issues anywhere in the world via the internet. Characteristically, this involves citizens, community groups, media organizations and governments altogether to take care of and improve their neighborhoods. In other words, distributing sense is the key word to empowering communities in SeeClickFix world.
Government receive alerts and track issues reported by iPhone, Blackberry and Android reporting apps, Mobile web reporting, Twitter and Facebook integration, Map based reporting widgets on your website. Local governments and media outlets across the country can stay up-to-date on the issues that have the most immediate impact on the health of our communities. Publicly documented SeeClickFix issues then quickly become the seeds for news stories, investigative reports, and citizen advocacy pieces. These collaborations create new space for public dialogue, connect civically engaged members of the community, and help citizens hold local governments accountable.
When the government can't be in all places at all times, SeeClickFix make it easy and fun for everyone citizen who take time and report even minor issues to see them fixed. Those are more likely to get more engaged in their local communities, and it also makes people happy and everyone benefits from that.
8. FixMyStreet is a site to help people report, view, or discuss local problems they’ve found to their local council by simply locating them on a map. It launched in early February 2007, and 100,424 updates have been on reports (marked in 01Sep2010). FixMyStreet is primarily for reporting things which are broken or dirty or damaged or dumped, and need fixing, cleaning or clearing, such as:
Abandoned vehicles
Dog Fouling
Flyposting or graffiti
Flytipping or litter
Streetcleaning, such as broken glass in a cycle lane
Unlit lamposts
Potholes
Then FixMyStreet send the reported problems to the council on people’s behalf.
The site only covers the countries of Great Britain, not including Northern Ireland, because of funding issue and Pan-Governmental Agreement. Users who want to use FixMyStreet on mobile need to download either from the App Store: FixMyStreet, StreetReport, or the Android Market--an app written by a volunteer, Anna Powell-Smith.
9. Neighborsforneighbors was set out by Joseph Porcelli. In August of 2004, after two of his neighbors were violently assaulted, Joseph’s desire to raise crime prevention awareness in his neighborhood stumbled onto the unique “mechanism to keep people involved after the threat has gone” of Neighbors for Neighbors. Today, Neighbors for Neighbors, Inc., is a federally recognized 501c3-- a non-profit organization exempt from some federal income taxes.
Neighborforneighbors operates neighbor-centric online social networks. Their networks provide a mechanism that makes it possible for participants to connect, communicate, and collaborate around common interests.
The most successful example of neighborforneighbors’ activities can be evident in Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood in Boston. This network now boasts 1,600+ members, who have organized 140 groups, and posted 280 blog posts, 980 photos, and 583 events. The network enjoys over 6,500 visitors each month who view an average of 4.5 pages and stay for 3 min and 20 seconds per visit. If you want to learn more about Jamaica Plain, click this: http://jamaicaplain.neighborsforneighbors.org/
+ Ning.com Ning.com was as a breakthrough of neighborsforneighbors.org. Through Ning they are providing and managing 18 networks, one for each of Boston’s neighborhoods. The networks serve as a neighborhood-centric soundboard for voices and a springboard for action. Neighbors connect to each other and resources (like their Neighborhood Coordinator, Community Service Officer, and nonprofit outreach coordinators) and discover and organize around common interests (like biking, planting trees, addressing crime, and helping those in need).
Ning is the leading online platform for the world's organizers, activists and influencers to inspire action. Based in Palo Alto, California, Ning offers an easy-to-use service that enables people to create custom branded social networks pricing from $2.95 to $49.95 monthly. With more than 300,000 active Ning Networks created across politics, entertainment, small business, non-profits, education and more, millions of people every day are coming together across Ning to connect around the topics they are passionate about.
Spot Crime is connected with Facebook and has 652 of fans.
2. MyLocalCrime is powered by SpotCrime.com. This version is a more user-friendly as well as another outlet to find and view crime information. If you want a quick view of crime data around a particular address- MyLocalCrime is for you. If you want a more detailed search of crime data, try SpotCrime. This group is dedicated to bringing relevant, local, timely and accurate crime information to the public at no cost to residents or the departments. In a belief that information is power; the more information residents have about their surroundings, the safer the communities will become, MyLocalCrime is dedicated for the right of every citizen to have easy access to crime information in his or her neighborhood. So far, 364 people on Facebook like this.
3. Everyblock collects all of the news and civic goings-on that have happened recently in your city, and filters an assortment of local news by location so you can keep track of what’s happening on your block, in your neighborhood and all over your city. Just enter any address, neighborhood or ZIP code in those cities, and the site shows you recent public records, news articles and other Web content that’s geographically relevant to you. The organization aims to make it simple for public to keep track of news in particular areas. A geographic filter is who they are.
As of March 2010, they cover 16 American cities--Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Washington. On each site, you can type in any address to read local news and public information. Three main types of news:
EveryBlock was originally funded by a two-year grant from the Knight Foundation through its Knight News Challenge program. It is now wholly owned by msnbc.com.
People who started and lead Everyblock are:
Adrian Holovaty
who is the leader of EveryBlock team, and a journalist and Web developer. Previously, he worked as editor of editorial innovations at washingtonpost.com and developed one of the original Google Maps mashups, chicagocrime.org.
Paul Smith
who is a developer at EveryBlock. Prior to EveryBlock, he was a freelance developer for sites such as Crain’s Chicago Business. Previously, he worked at the Center for Neighborhood Technology, a Chicago non-profit, where he was the technology director of a community wireless networking pilot, and developed many Web sites such as the Civic Footprint.
Daniel X. O’Neil
who is the People Person at EveryBlock, responsible for working with local governments to uncover new data sets.
Joseph Kocherhans
who is a developer at EveryBlock. Before coming to EveryBlock, he worked on the Web team at the Lawrence Journal-World.
4. CrimeReports(TipSoft) is the first and largest in online crime mapping, partnering with over 900 law enforcement agencies across North America. TipSoft has evolved fully integrated online WebTips, where submitted data and images are delivered via encrypted email and E-Transfer, and SMS text-a-Tip capabilities into the CrimeReports network. These affordable, and easy-to-use tools enable community members to understand crime trends and share current neighborhood crime data with the public and empower them to make informed decisions to help improve the safety of their neighborhood and community. These integrated crime map and email crime alerts are accessed for free at
CrimeReports is founded and led by:
Greg Whisenant
Founder & CEO. Previously, Greg started and was General Manager of Wasatch Solutions, a networking services and software development firm based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Before starting Wasatch Solutions in 2001, Greg worked as a senior legislative advisor for law firm Hale and Dorr in Washington, DC. Greg also worked for several years as a legislative aide to U.S. Senator Robert F. Bennett (R-UT), where he handled law enforcement, technology and telecommunications issues. For several years, Greg has been selected as a member of the vSpring v100, a list of the top 100 technology entrepreneurs in the State of Utah.
Ken Meyers
President & COO. Ken Meyers manages Operations for Public Engines. Prior to joining the company, he was the key operational executive in leading AdvancedMD Software.
Scott Petty - vSpring Capital
Scott is a founding Managing Director of vSpring Capital, an early stage venture capital fund. Scott has led vSpring's investments in Alianza, Alpha Bay, Cerberian (acquired by Blue Coat Systems, NASDAQ:BCSI), comScore Networks (NASDAQ:SCOR), Control4, CrimeReports, FamilyLink, Infusionsoft, LignUp, SwarmBuilder, and Zonder.
Mike Dodd - Austin Ventures
Mike Dodd, venture partner, joined Austin Ventures in 2008 and focuses on early and expansion-stage software and web-enabled business and consumer services.
5. i-Neighbors is a social networking service that connects residents of geographic neighborhoods. The goal of this site is to help individuals and their communities organize, share information, and work together to address local problems.
i-Neighbors was first launched in 2004. The site now serves thousands of neighborhoods across the United States and Canada.
i-Neighbors is part of an ongoing research project directed by Prof. Keith Hampton at the Annenberg School for Communication, The University of Pennsylvania. This work has benefited from the support of the National Science Foundation, L-Soft, Microsoft Research, and a Google Grant. The views expressed here and by users of this service are not endorsed by these sponsors.
Users can subscribe to i-Neighbors "discussions" and other "activity" using RSS. The Activity Wall is a summary of all the activity of other users. For example, the wall records discussion comments, profile updates, the addition of new content, and when new users join a neighborhood. From the discussion menu you can start a new discussion or comment on an existing topic. A RSS feed is a web page that is checked by a software tool called a news aggregator that can notify you when new content is available.
6. MS Vine is currently a beta service and needs feedback and ideas. The basic concept of MS Vine is to connect you to the people and places you care about most, when it matters; stay in touch with family and friends, be informed when someone needs help; and get involved to create great communities. You can send alerts from a mobile phone using text message (standard text messaging charges apply), as well as from e-mail, or from the application.The basic service is available to individuals at no cost. Organizations and individuals will be able to purchase additional services in the future.
Using your personal dashboard, Information associated with the places you have chosen will appear on your map, including articles from 20,000 news and public safety sources. Information from people you care about, such as alerts and reports, will appear on the dashboard too. By sending and receiving alerts, you can organize people into groups - the sports team you coach, people who live nearby, family far away, special friends, and emergency contacts. Each person defines how they want to receive alerts – through e-mail, a text message, or on their computer. Using Reports, you decides what you want to share with whom, and then the information is sent directly to their personal dashboard.
7. SeeClickFix allows anyone to report and track non-emergency issues anywhere in the world via the internet. Characteristically, this involves citizens, community groups, media organizations and governments altogether to take care of and improve their neighborhoods. In other words, distributing sense is the key word to empowering communities in SeeClickFix world.
Government receive alerts and track issues reported by iPhone, Blackberry and Android reporting apps, Mobile web reporting, Twitter and Facebook integration, Map based reporting widgets on your website. Local governments and media outlets across the country can stay up-to-date on the issues that have the most immediate impact on the health of our communities. Publicly documented SeeClickFix issues then quickly become the seeds for news stories, investigative reports, and citizen advocacy pieces. These collaborations create new space for public dialogue, connect civically engaged members of the community, and help citizens hold local governments accountable.
When the government can't be in all places at all times, SeeClickFix make it easy and fun for everyone citizen who take time and report even minor issues to see them fixed. Those are more likely to get more engaged in their local communities, and it also makes people happy and everyone benefits from that.
8. FixMyStreet is a site to help people report, view, or discuss local problems they’ve found to their local council by simply locating them on a map. It launched in early February 2007, and 100,424 updates have been on reports (marked in 01Sep2010). FixMyStreet is primarily for reporting things which are broken or dirty or damaged or dumped, and need fixing, cleaning or clearing, such as:
Then FixMyStreet send the reported problems to the council on people’s behalf.
The site only covers the countries of Great Britain, not including Northern Ireland, because of funding issue and Pan-Governmental Agreement. Users who want to use FixMyStreet on mobile need to download either from the App Store: FixMyStreet, StreetReport, or the Android Market--an app written by a volunteer, Anna Powell-Smith.
FixMyStreet was built by mySociety, in conjunction with the Young Foundation
9. Neighborsforneighbors was set out by Joseph Porcelli. In August of 2004, after two of his neighbors were violently assaulted, Joseph’s desire to raise crime prevention awareness in his neighborhood stumbled onto the unique “mechanism to keep people involved after the threat has gone” of Neighbors for Neighbors. Today, Neighbors for Neighbors, Inc., is a federally recognized 501c3-- a non-profit organization exempt from some federal income taxes.
Neighborforneighbors operates neighbor-centric online social networks. Their networks provide a mechanism that makes it possible for participants to connect, communicate, and collaborate around common interests.
The most successful example of neighborforneighbors’ activities can be evident in Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood in Boston. This network now boasts 1,600+ members, who have organized 140 groups, and posted 280 blog posts, 980 photos, and 583 events. The network enjoys over 6,500 visitors each month who view an average of 4.5 pages and stay for 3 min and 20 seconds per visit. If you want to learn more about Jamaica Plain, click this: http://jamaicaplain.neighborsforneighbors.org/
+ Ning.com
Ning.com was as a breakthrough of neighborsforneighbors.org. Through Ning they are providing and managing 18 networks, one for each of Boston’s neighborhoods. The networks serve as a neighborhood-centric soundboard for voices and a springboard for action. Neighbors connect to each other and resources (like their Neighborhood Coordinator, Community Service Officer, and nonprofit outreach coordinators) and discover and organize around common interests (like biking, planting trees, addressing crime, and helping those in need).
Ning is the leading online platform for the world's organizers, activists and influencers to inspire action. Based in Palo Alto, California, Ning offers an easy-to-use service that enables people to create custom branded social networks pricing from $2.95 to $49.95 monthly. With more than 300,000 active Ning Networks created across politics, entertainment, small business, non-profits, education and more, millions of people every day are coming together across Ning to connect around the topics they are passionate about.